they are valued, show them, specifically,
why you feel this way. Then ask how you
can help them and the department achieve
your newly developed goals.

Middle Performer Conversations

These team members are looking for your
leadership to help make them better. They
care about the organization and the department and will let you know when something is wrong. They are solid performers
who do a good job day-in and day-out.
When you meet with these team members
let them know they do solid work and that
you are recruiting them over to the new
culture. You will need to do some coaching here, as there will be parts of their job
performances where you will want to see
improvement. To accomplish this successfully you will want to be supportive of the
good things they have accomplished. Like
with the high performers, be specific.

When you move to the coaching por-tion of these conversations share onlyone area for improvement. Let the teammember know your concern, but keep theconversation positive and select an im-provement task that is not insurmount-able. 1 For instance: “Sue, I’ve noticed youare consistently 10 minutes late reportingto the department. We will need yourcontributions on time if we are to achieveour goals. We cannot do this without yourhelp. Can I count on you to be there?”End the conversation on anotherpositive note and detail another specificarea where the middle performing teammember shines. Let these team membersknow you are committed to the successof the organization, the department, andthe individual. Tell them they are an im-portant part of the overall equation and,without their contributions, the depart-ment would be sorely lacking. Again, askif there is anything you can do to helpthem accomplish the performance im-provements you identified. By doing this,you move their performances to the nextlevel. Any time you improve the middleperformers overall performance you cre-ate a gap between them and the low per-formers—this is the goal. You want thatgap, as it gives the middle performers alarger sense of accomplishment and lessidentification with the lower performers.This widened gap creates an uncomfort-able feeling in the minds of the low per-formers. They will begin to realize theyneed to “step up” or “step out.”

Low Performer Conversations

The number of low performing team
members should be low. They only gain
momentum and strength when they can
increase their numbers. They do this by
swaying the middle performers into their
corner, but you can prevent this by widening the gap during these performance
conversations. Accountability will be the
biggest tool here. You will need to hold
these team members accountable for
their actions, from job performance and
behavioral performance perspectives.
This is why, in part three of this series,
we created the behavioral standard doctrine. Follow the doctrine and, when they
do not, write them up in accordance with
the disciplinary process. They will test it
and they will need to see that it is strong
and that everyone will be held accountable. They will need to know you will
hold them accountable to being on the
bus or you will show them the door.

These conversations are crucial and
you must be prepared to handle them.
Low performers are skilled at the survival
game, as they have been in these situations before and are experienced at how
these conversations go. Get the human resources department and your manager on
board. Their support is crucial and it will
also make them aware of who the low performers are. They will then hold you accountable in how you are handling them.

Studer recommends the DESK approachwhen dealing with low performers1:Describe what has been observed (the •poor behaviors and/or performance).

Make sure all of this is documented in a
conversational note in each employee’s
file. You will want to refer to it at a later
date. Have each team member sign the
form after you have the conversation
with them. In creating a paper trail, the
DESK approach will keep you centered
and on topic. Do not let the low performers take the conversation elsewhere
by deflecting blame. This is not about
anything else but them—improvement
is on their shoulders.

Make sure you are constantly following up with the low performers. As you see
improvement let them know; however, if
you continue to see the same issues you
talked about before then say that, as well.
They need to know you are holding them
accountable for their actions at every
turn. If they report to one of your direct
reports or supervisors then you will need
to have them present for these conversations. They may even have a pivotal
role in conducting them or detailing the
performance that needs improvement.
You must move them quickly through
the disciplinary process. The goal is not
to eliminate all low performers, as some
will see the light and begin to improve.
However, you must be willing to deal
with those who will not change.

As you move through this process one
thing will become clear. You are setting
yourself up to deal with the 90 plus percent of team members who are high to
middle performers instead of spending
your time dealing with the eight percent
of low performers. Which is better? You
also show these valuable team members
that low performance will not be tolerated and that high performance is valued.
This will cause everyone to step up their
performances. Soon you will have a very
high achieving team and everyone else
in your organization will be wondering
how you did it! Your biggest task will be